Bitcoin Forum

...please make sure their post history is not filled with 1-2 line replies in spam megathreads (or bounty reports, of course).

For example, Delphinus awarded crocus a merit point to get him out of newbie hell after reviewing his post history:


While crocus can string together words into an intelligible sentence or two, most, if not all, of his/her replies are merely rehashing what a thousand other people (or bots) have said on the hundreds of other pages in these spam megathreads.

And now the chase begin. Even a single Merit counts..

I understand what you say, the rewards are only for those that really deserve it but I do not think you can recognize those people because the attention of senior members for newbies is too little. However, after the story and this change, I hope that you or Delphinus, even more people should pay more attention to the contribution of the newbie and help them out of hell.
That's just my opinion, you have to ignore it also okay because I'm just a newbie:)

I got made a merit source this morning, which was a bit of a surprise since I hadn't ever applied to be one and have stated multiple times that I didn't want to be one.  However, since Theymos has seen fit to saddle me with the responsibility, I'll accept it and take it seriously.

However, I don't plan to give merits to any old Newbie just for a typical crappy post, i.e., I don't plan to lower the standards that I've always had.  What I do plan on doing is finding low-ranked members who actually deserve merits, and I'll pay more attention to noob posts when I see them.

Theymos wants these noobs merited even if their posts are just "good".  Fortunately we all have different definitions of the word "good" and in my opinion that's the standard I've always tried to uphold.  I just happen to have high standards when it comes to what's good.  I'll be on the lookout for good posts, as I'm sure all the new and old merit sources will be.  We've got more sMerits to play with, so I don't think this is going to be as bad as it looks in the first 24 hours of the change.

I like that.  I think I'm going to use that in the future.

With the requirement of 3 or 5 merit to rank up to Jr Member it would be more difficult for cheaters to abuse merit.

Yeah, users who's entire post history is just one/two liners probably don't deserve merit because they're just putting in the bare minimum to appear like they're not spamming and contributing, but they are spamming and contribute very little. I agree with one merit to become Junior but we should also remove Junior's signatures. Requiring ten merit to become a Member and get a sig would really sort the wheat from the chaff here. Far too easy to beg, buy or trade one merit and this will become rife. Ten is a much different ball game and becomes exponentially more difficult the more accounts you have.

I've just given you a couple of merits, and that will do for my awards until all the new merit threads have died down or been consolidated.

I'll spend some of today taking photos to start my new image hosting site to help  newbies and juniors to make decent posts, and let them use links instead of images in their posts.

I have gone out of my way to award the first merit to many users here, but every single time I check the user's post history to make sure I am not incentivizing a bounty hunter or sig campaign spammer.

Unfortunately, looking at your post history shows you to be the type of person I am warning about with this thread. For example:

Reply #609 in "already lost 50% of my capital": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2481636.msg45372668#msg45372668 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2481636.msg45372668#msg45372668)

Reply #228 in "100 USD enough to start trading": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5010432.msg45372096#msg45372096 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5010432.msg45372096#msg45372096)

Reply #372 in "Bitcoin holders will have to pay tax?": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4517779.msg45371426#msg45371426 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4517779.msg45371426#msg45371426)

Etc. and so on.

Delphinus is on a roll :o
The good thing is, he'll soon run out of sMerit . At least the new restrictions changed Jr. Member spam from an unlimited problem to a restricted problem.

That's a good way to go about it I think. 

I just gave a merit to alanst in another thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030495.msg45824220#msg45824220), a member who's basically brand new.  Normally I would not have done that, but he demonstrated that his command of the English language was pretty good and his post was organized and to the point.  I can't imagine he'll somehow turn into a typical bounty spammer unless he sells the account to one.

Theymos wants a little relaxing of standards if I understood him correctly, but I'm not going for that in the case of new members especially.  I will keep an open mind about all of this, but I don't intend to help any shitposters to rank up.  The good thing is that most of them couldn't write a decent post if they spent all day on it.  It just isn't in them.

I do not deny that sometimes my opinions seem to be just rubbish in your eyes but I still want to say that I am human, I can not work perfectly every day, and of course, mistakes are things that I can not avoid but at least I try and try. And you should empathize for me, instead of trying to find all the wrong bugs and then judge me, from the beginning, you are still not as perfect as I am in the present but over time, you will improve and enhance everything.
That's the crux of the matter, looking at things with a more objective perspective, buddy :)

Yeah, some due diligence is needed. The thing is they might make a really good post that would normally deserve some merit, but once they've received that merit they are just going to fall into old habits, and spam again because they've got their goal, and can continue earning via bounties.

Heh - just like the only people that should run for political office are those that don't want to. Or another favorite cliche of mine, "no good deed goes unpunished!"


It doesn't have quite the same ring to it as, "haiku bot," but no copyright is claimed here either!


*   *   *



Aye, requiring even more merit to become a Jr. Member and/or before a sig can be displayed would be even better, but this is better than nothing and I daresay will tremendously reduce the spam problem. Also, by implementing this new restriction ~8 months after the merit system was introduced pretty much all of the airdropped sMerit have been spent, as evidenced by the recent posts of coinlocket and the other statistics whizzes. So, nefarious merit trading should be less of an issue now than it would have been back in late January.


*   *   *



Hah! It's always nice to receive recognition from you cantankerous old curmudgeons, but this thread really is just a Public Service Announcement.


*   *   *



Well, that sort of disproves what I just said to hilariousetc above...  :-\

Agree 100%.  I'm already seeing some questionable posts from demoted noobs being merited, and I think all merit sources new and old should be a little less trigger happy.  I understand Theymos wants the sources to be somewhat liberal with their sMerits, but some of these posts are just bloated messes like this one (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030564.msg45819603#msg45819603).  Then again, I don't know if chillcott got made a merit source or what the story is there.  He could not be a source, he could be an alt, he could be a friend. 

Whatever it is, though, that post sucked IMO.  People often mistake post length for post quality, and that is NOT the case.

And not a single punctuation mark was to be found...  :P

Welp, I waded into the mess with Delphinus on theymos' thread after seeing LoyceV linked to this one, so the argument has come... wait for it... full circle!  <rimshot!>


EDIT: I have no idea why I thought full circle was funny... Maybe that the arguments are going in circles without getting anywhere. Case in point:


You have been posting almost exclusively in spam megathreads, and I wonder if you even read the first post in this thread before replying?!?

See, for example, post #2167 (2167!!!) in a thread on "top 5 altcoins": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2406729.msg45674706#msg45674706 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2406729.msg45674706#msg45674706)

I'll not waste more time digging up additional examples.

Well, there are some people, like me for example, which are trying to contribute to the forum as per our knowledge, surely I'm not an expert of anything but whatever I have learned, I try to reply based on that.

Till now, I have joined only one airdrop in which no report posting was necessary. No crap in my post history. I seriously ask you, where should I post and what should I post which will be noticed by seniors and maybe they'll reward me with merits?

I seriously want to get at least 10 merits so that I could become a member in this forum and I'm ready to work hard for those merits. Just need some guidance from experts.

Oh pardon me SIR ;) will you give me Merits for I'm just a NOOB ;D I hope you consider I wish you more power GOD BLESS YOU ;D

You don't need any mate. Just enhance your capabilities and knowledge and that would do the work on giving you some Merits that you need. ;)
As I have read from somewhere here before also comes from a newbie here...


And just look at that, he was given a Merit on his second post without a sweat.

I feel that I should probably make an appearance here, since I'm mentioned in the first post.

Let me start off by saying I respect everyone's opinion and understand their reasoning for not agreeing with me. Based on the reactions I'm getting, my view of Bitcointalk is potentially not even aligned with Theymos. However, I am not a merit source so I do feel I can grant my (limited) merits based on my own values.

My opinion is that quality is important, but that the merit sources are to strict for some non-native speakers. Most expect lengthy posts in fluent English, related to Bitcoin. In my view, this leaves an important group of non-native, less eloquent, visitors who will never be able to gather any merits. These members do not deserve to become Legendary members, but I don't think that jr. membership is overrating their contributions. They are ensuring I have new posts to read when I come online, trying to contribute to the best of their abilities.

Of course I excluded posters specifically farming for merit, only participating in bounty campaigns etc. What we're talking about are the users that write 2-4 sentence replies in non-fluent English, under relevant posts on a regular basis. My feeling is that these members do deserve jr. membership after making hundreds of relevant, non-eloquent, posts.

As a result of the previous discussions, people seem to think I'm devaluing merits by doing so. The good news is I only had 5 to give away. I don't think the merit system will collapse because of me but I have made 5 people very happy today. That gives me plenty of offline merit to be able to do something like that for someone  :)

Careful what we wish for, since meritocratic systems focus on rewarding type which, in turn, forces people to compete for relative position or advantage.

I wouldn't be surprised if the newly anointed "merit sources" start to face a deluge of competing, yet compelling (to them), posts appealing to their personal post allegiances.

--
A system that measures people on relative as opposed to absolute performance is quite likely to be very time consuming indeed for our merit sources.

An analogy is that of everyone at a stadium standing to get a better view. While individually rational, this is wasteful for the group as a whole. When everyone decides (rationally) to put in more resources for the positional good (a better view), relative positions are unchanged but everyone "spends more" just to maintain their relative position. Meritocracy is a good system but it sure ain't perfect :)

Agree read carefull the post history of users, and look even if they copy paste what they wrote, now finally we have a small but powerfull tool don't ruin it on day 1.



Congrats, you are the best users here! Active and cares about the community!

I explained my rationale for giving him a merit here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030749.msg45826063#msg45826063), and I stand by it.  It was for that post which was a short but well-written post by a noob who I thought deserved it.  You didn't quote the whole thing, by the way.

And hey, if I'm wrong then he probably won't ever make it past Jr. Member.  No problem.  I'm not going to make it a habit of meriting garbage newbie posts--it never was my habit anyway.  

Please kindly look in to my account and check my posts if I deserve to be merit , am not saying you should give me free but think I had some good post and think I deserve but if you find non good enough then am ready to work hard and believe I will get one day , I will be happy if you can check my posts and let me know if I worth or not and let me know where to nail it in other to be merited. Thank you.

Thanks for dropping in and engaging the discussion in a reasonable manner. I wasn't picking on you, per se, when I used your awarding crocus a merit as an example, it was just convenient and poignant.

However, let me explain my rationale for the warning in this thread: just consider the mindset of a person who mainly posts in spam megathreads - that is, those threads that drone on for dozens to hundreds of pages on subjects which themselves aren't even original. Such a person is not really interested in having a discussion (like this one) rather, they are merely trying to increase their post count, and likely for a signature or bounty campaign.

I don't have a problem with sig campaigns. In fact, I checked out chip mixer specifically because of the quality of people involved in its campaign. But that sword cuts both ways, and I will never consider ingotcoin or eloncity or privcy because of the massive number of shitposts their campaign participants generate.

Oh, and hardly any of my posts are on bitcoin: my primary interest is altcoin mining.

I agree that Juniors should also be prohibited from using signatures and personal texts. And I`m sure theymos also understands this. But I guess he didn`t want to establish such drastic changes all at once, as this could "scare off" users of lower ranks and have a bad effect on traffic. Theymos gives Juniors a chance to improve the quality of their posts. Establishing new rules for Newbies is a kind of warning for Juniors. If they correctly understand it, the need to establish more stringent rules in order to become a member, will disappear. And if spam from Juniors still continues, theymos will always have time to introduce new restrictions.

I dunno. Requiring one or even ten merit is hardly drastic, but it probably would have been better doing it now at the same time rather than at some other point down the line. I think it would be better to make certain changes all together rather than having to deal with fresh amounts of complaints every time we change something minor. This is a small baby-step in the right direction but we've still got a long way to go before we make this forum fit for purpose. I don't think any amount of changes here other than the outright removal of signatures will scare people off either. Children will throw their tantrums for a few days or weeks then get over it and deal with it because this forum is far too valuable to them so believe me when I say they're going nowhere, but they're certainly going to cry about it for a bit until they calm down.

Very nice to read your comment, can say it is sympathy for the new members of the forum. I have read the above discussion and I am actually a member from a country that does not use english as my main language and my foreign language ability is quite limited. It can be said that it is almost impossible to write a long analysis with complex technical terms and graphs so the ability to collect merit is impossible. In addition to the merit system, it is now desirable to have a merit system for members every year or every two years (only 1 merit) of new members who meet the required number of activities during the year (in the range 100-300 Activity). That's great for all right?

I see your point and I agree with you. If I decided, I would approve all the changes at a time. Those who really want to stay on this forum would have to accept the rules and comply with them. But I guess theymos thinks otherwise. Perhaps he sees something, knows about some trends that we don`t know about. I'm sure that for such a "step-by-step" decision theymos had reasons. After all, he took the decision not to hurry and introduce changes gradually, although he could do everything together. And, despite the fact that I personally advocate the widespread approval of changes that were repeatedly suggested by the forum participants (including you), "step-by-step" solutions also make sense. For example, it is easier to analyze the results of a single change, whereas you clearly see the cause-effect relationship (made the decision-got the result) than all the changes together (in that case, there is no certainty which decision led to this or that result).

I gave him my last source Merit (for the first time since I became a source, I finally managed to spend them all). On top of your reasoning: he's also a Copper Member, so he doesn't need to be Jr. Member for the perks. And he made only 3 posts since June, which isn't the typical spammer. Basically new users who aren't spammers make me very happy, as that is what this forum needs.

I'll have to disagree with your reasoning here. Making someone happy isn't a good reason to merit a post. I can just as well get them banned if they break the rules, knowing damn well it can seriously impact someone's income in a poor country. I won't merit them to make them happy, and I won't stop reporting bad posts because it could make them sad.

Good point. But doesn't that remove the liberty of the merit sources (which the admins chosen) to give merits base from their own judgement or criteria?

Merit system is subjective but efficient way to maximize quality posts, I agree to that. I just felt sad to see my account to newbie again. :(

This makes no sense whatsoever, but since you exercised the poor judgment to wander into this thread in the first place despite a post history that even a mother couldn't love...

Post #349 in "Germany recognized the bitcoin" [sic]:


Post #898 in "Factors that affect the value of bitcoin":


Etc.

Lets be honest, the only people who are really complaining about this change are the ones who wanted to use their accounts for bounties or people who wanted to use bots for
the very same reason.

The easiest way to keep people away from spamming is by restricting these bounties or changing the way these bounties have to work.
For example that not the acitivity or amount of posts is the important thing but the merits you already earned.

So that people who somehow provide for the community or care about it can take part in these bounties. Since I assume
these people are less likely to join scam projects on purpose - sure you can never be certain about these things, but I think
it might be a good indicator.

If anyone doesnt like my suggestion, sorry! But dont burn me for it!

Feel proud of yourself huh? With your 1588 posts and only 117 merit? I guess opposing your opinion will result to shaming. Is this one of your ways to get merit?

Good luck with that  :)

I feel you're taking my post a bit out of context. I had several reasons to provide them with my merits (based their contribution to this forum). This was just an addition for me, not the reason for choosing them. However, I think that with great power also comes great responsibility. As administrator and merit source, you have more responsibility for your actions and the need to thoroughly research members before making decisions. Although we might not agree on the approach, I am really trying to help the community how I think is best  :)

No offense taken, I like reasonable discussions  :) I've personally found new gems in threads such as "which altcoin is the best buy right now", so I'm probably more lenient than most towards these large, generic threads. I've also posted there myself. Their posts seemed "personal" to me, not a generic bot attempting to gain more posts.

However, I didn't review all threads they replied on so I could be wrong. I can't withdraw merits if people got them undeserved, but I do stick with my viewpoint that active participation is for me also a factor, in addition to the quality of posts.

It doesn't matter anymore, we got demoted and I think we deserve it. Yes, we deserve it because we never did something for the community, majority of people got demoted are bounty hunters like me. Posting for weekly reports for our own sake without helping the forum to be cleaned. So this is indeed a best way of clearing nonsense people spamming all over the threads. Good luck everyone.

Am really depressed now for getting demoted with all my efforts to continue making nice post and still want to ask what in a situation where by someone makes good post but no one ever recognized him. by giving merits until he beg because i have been trying to make quality post but no one has ever seen it. The struggle continues  , i think this will make me put more effort of good post.

There are many responsible members like you so well, many members have quality posts but little attention. And they really should get at least 1 merit for their contributions...

This.

We are so often focused on micromanaging merits (no doubt affected by the incessant newbie whining in Meta) that we tend to lose sight of the big picture. Yes, sometimes a shitposter will get an undeserved merit AKA nuclear shelter. That's fine. 99% of them won't and this will go a long way towards cleaning this forum up, especially if theymos decides to appoint more moderators/patrollers. That's not to say we should not be careful with sMerits or not look out for merit sale/abuse but let's not sweat it too much either.

BTW those juniors with one merit and 1000 posts will stick out just like newbies with 1000 posts. See one like that, check their post history, report some (or a 100) and chances are he/she/it/whatever will get banned, which is almost as good as a nuke if a bit more wearisome.

If you have the time/patience to sort through all the chaff to find people actually having a discussion in those spam megathreads then I can't argue with giving those people merit.

My primary concern is that one mindless shitposter spamming for bounty can churn out dozens of posts per day, and if enough of them are "accidentally" merited the whole spam problem starts up again.

Although suchmoon makes a good point that a jr. member with high activity/post count and just 1 or 2 merits will, indeed, stick out like a sore thumb now. Much more so than when there were a near-infinite number of newbies AND jr. members with 0 merit.

With due respect, i think if the query/question can be answered in few words then it is good to go. Not all people who visited this forum is gifted to do a Pharmacist act, answer a single question with a poem.  :)   



I know that this forum is putting emphasis to people to contribute to this forum but i think we might as well distinguish them if they are real or robot.

really ?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45810400#msg45810400

Well, I don't care because that's fun BUT not so responsible & serious as you say.

It really sadden me to be pulled back after numerous potential post I have crated,I did create meaningful post since I was a user on this platform but I was not given any gratitude with merit for meaningful post I wrote,some of us are real but after every post we were just neglected and pulling meaningful users like us is  really bad,I hope one day I will still come back to Jr rank

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder buddy. Only other people can say that your post is meaningful or not and don't judge yourself by yourself.

We all will be as long as we persevere and be able to overcome this another hump in this forum. We just have to follow rules and regulations and avoid spamming because that is the main reason why we arrived to this situation. And importantly don't leave and quit the forum if you feel that you can do it.

Dont worry about i know but thanks for the note ! 

There are so many now coming out their Houses for that 1 !

Hope there are some useful .

I can understand the concept of rewarding structure, However, In my opinion its quite difficult to get the attention from senior member or higher ranking members for newbies and chances are very low. I believe your story could make some influence on rewarding newbies for their contribution and support them, to overcome the recent newly- Demoted newbie situation.

After going through your post history, the first 20+ posts (ignoring the rest 9 pages of bounty spam) didn't seem too bad and I decided to merit this average post:


But then:


You got the attention.

It seems most people think that bounty tasks are spam and are not worth as a marketing campaing for the cryptoprojects. If this is the case, why keep accepting it on this forum? If this forum is just for techie people, there is no point in keep acceting bounty campaigns and expect that newbies can post "positive and valuable" posts. So eliminate all the bounty threads. And we non-techie persons and "toxic" bounty hunters will just move on to another platform.
And, afaik, almost 99,99999999% of members that have credits and a higher rank, earned it with the old rules, not with these new rules.

I guess you don't have much practice engaging in actual discussions on here since you totally ignored the clause, "in spam megathreads (or bounty reports, of course)."

Looking at your post history, the last 4 show some sign of human intelligence as you deal with being demoted back to newbie, but prior to that is a 10 day gap then a post in a spam megathread - #1387 in "Investment in ICO" - and then about a 40 minute gap to post #371 in "Crypto Currency is the fastest way to get rich ?" then a 50 minute gap to post #1339 in "Is the world ready for cryptocurrency" etc. and so on. Just basically a shitshow of spam megathread shitposting, really.




And looking at your post history, the last 4 are whining about being a newbie again, while the 6 prior to that are bounty reports, and the other 15 are useless ramblings in spam megathreads...




Technically off topic, but I just mentioned elsewhere that I actually checked out Chip Mixer precisely because of the credibility and quality of people promoting it. The service is not something I am likely to need, but i will surely remember it in the future and with a positive connotation. That's 90% of marketing right there.


And an honorable mention to krishnapramod for nailing a plagiarizer while I was asleep!

Just don't forget that it doesn't matter how you 'earned' your rank, old rules, new rules, people are reporting spam and shitposts, so higher ranks are also reported if they don't act according to the rules of the forum. If you are a decent poster, and you want to rank up, you still have the chance, but it will be a bit slower compared to the times of the 'old rules'...

I can't agree with your opinion (maybe because I'm one of them;-).

Bitcointalk is the oldest and greatest site dealing in crypto, but not only it's technical aspects but the whole crypto scope. You can find here developers, ethusiasts, miners, traders etc. It's the greatest place you can read about new projects and also join to the bounty programs. So thanks to these this site became complete crypto platform.

I know that bounties generate lots of spam but in my opinion mostly in it's own area (ANN/Bounty section). Kicking away all Bounty and ANN would probably cut big part of spam but is this real the best solution?
Maybe rather than cutting large part of the society - I really think they are part of cyrpto society even if they don't know as much technical aspects they all are spreading news about crypto to the world what is "kind of work" for mass adoption of cryptocurrency.

Maybe better solution would be tighten the rules for them a bit. 1 merit revolution was the first step but i think it will be enough only for the short time. I think that main issue are not bounty accounts but MULTIPLE bounty accounts. Setting an account here is really simple the only thing we need is email. Let's say I'll make 10 accounts on the first one i spend some time to get a few merits after being given some i can give them back to my other accounts and then I'm the owner of multiple Jr member account ;-)
It's cheating but it's hard to prove and I'm more than sure that 20%-40% of accounts are fake/multiple....

What if.....???

What if beside merit revolution upgrade a verification policy and add telephone number verification. Let's say Jr Member upgrade needs to verificate telephone number. Many sites already done it exchanges, steemit etc. It's much less comfortable for cheaters to buy 10 or 50 simcards than set up 50 emails... I think it could cut much more spam than 1 merit need

Brilliant idea and theymos said he's gonna do it:

I was so curious on how that will work out, I even told Delphinus on the other thread he awarded a shitposter merit....
Seems like I was 99% correct:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1997375;sa=showPosts


Such words, much contribution, wow!

I still have some merits left and I was thinking on helping a few newbies but only after the things calm down a little as I don't really want to get tricked by some wolfs changing their clothes for a few days and then reverting to their methods.

And I always checked their history, as it has prevented me from sending merits a hundred times. If the first thing I see is that the user has the last 20 posts of the same size (3 lines or 4 lines) I don't even bother reading them as no normal user engaged in discussing something on this forum will manage to keep that pattern.

That's a rather clever algorithm for quickly identifying a shitposter! I wouldn't worry about accidentally meriting a shitposter if you are actually checking their history beforehand, though - even if they changed their posting behavior after the meritocalypse their older posts will still give them away.

I believe when a person benefits the community, he is praised. It does not depend on whether you are new or already a senior member. We need to maintain friendly communication on the forum. There is one good saying: "Be easier and people to reach for you"

What are you talking about?  It seems that the discussion here is about whether NOT to erroneously give merit(s) to someone who does not really deserve it.

I actually am torn about the level of due diligence that is necessary, once a good post is found, but sometimes a little due diligence is going to reveal a disingenuous poster that may have merely plagiarized in order to achieve what appears to be a good post (once or twice).   

I have no problem to give some benefit of the doubt to newbies or other members who are newer to the forum than me (and I would not fault any other member from sometimes sending merits out to members based on a kind of "benefit of the doubt), and surely sometimes erroneous merits are going to be dished out from time to time, but any suggestion that all posters in this forum are on the up and up and are genuine in their integrity and their desire to meaningfully contribute to the forum (or attempt to learn for themselves) is contrary to actual evidence. 

Actually, sometimes a few back and forth posts with any member could suss out whether a poster seems to be genuine or not, but it would be quite time-consuming to engage in that kind of higher level of interaction or that variation of due diligence prior to meriting a post.  OP here seems to be suggesting that at least a cursory glance into the members posting history would be an appropriate balance - which a lot of members seem to agree that approach to be reasonable, prior to sending smerit(s).

So your suggestion that some level of due diligence or skepticism about members creates division amongst members seems to put forth a false narrative that is contrary to experience of many members who have been participating in this forum for a decent amount of time.

More specifically, I started this thread because of the massive influx of newbies to meta complaining about or "praising" the rule change, realizing that if most/all of their posts (outside of bounty reports) are in spam megathreads (to reach their sig campaign post quotas), then giving them a merit for their eloquent (or, at least, not-crap) meta post would just enable them to continue spamming elsewhere.

It's not a matter of looking down on newbies or any other kind of elitism - I've merited 5 newbies back to jr. member myself in the last few days - rather, it's merely an attempt to not undo the change that many of us have been begging theymos to implement for months now.

This idea of demoting junior ranking members of this platform came as a surprise to me.
My inquiries made it clear that it was as a result of unintelligent posts coming from mostly junior members.
While i think a query should have made to fish out usernames associated to such posts, i believe this approach will make most of us go back to the drawing board to get better.

On another thought, I've seen many Bitcointalk members offering to sell and buy merits on several telegram channels for ICO projects. I dont think this portrays Bitcointalk in a good limelight.

SOLUTION
Their is meant to be an inquiry into the reasoning behind merit awards.
Am a hardcore disciplinarian and believes in the sanity of this forum; but wouldn't want unguided influence to demean the effort already made here!

My question is quiet simple, what if the person creates a good post according to your requirement and later after checking the history posts of this person, you realized that they are not good posts, you will not award the current post with merit because of the previous posts???

This should be up to each individual merit sender to decide. Ideally we should be meriting posts, not users, so that would imply not looking at the post history before sending merits to a particular post. This would also make it easier for improving users to get merited even if their past posts were shit. However due to rampant plagiarism and other issues I can totally understand if some senders choose to look at the post history, trust ratings, etc.

Pretty much, and though I've already explained why, I guess I'll explain it again. Let's say a person writes a brilliant post here in meta about the injustice of the merit system, a post that is surely worthy of receiving a merit. However, upon reviewing their other posts it seems that up until they got demoted back to newbie they were only dashing off one/two-liners in spam megathreads - you know, the threads that go on for hundreds if not thousands of posts on such scintillating subjects like "when bitcoin stop going down?", "how to tell if baunty [sic] scam?",. etc. This strongly implies they were merely churning out posts to meet a sig campaign quota and therefore not really having a conversation/discussion which is the primary purpose of a forum. Their recent demotion back to newbie removed their signature which also removed the incentive to churn out useless/ignored posts in spam megathreads, and suddenly they are, indeed, capable of crafting a coherent sentence or two for a post in meta. If one were to then given them a merit for this brief flash of eloquence they could then go back to their shitposting for bounty ways, entirely defeating the purpose of theymos' retroactively applied requirement of 1 merit to rank up from newbie to jr. member.

So while it might seem cruel or unfair or what have you to deny a merit to a post that is worthy just because the other posts in their history are in spam megathreads (or are bounty reports), the fact of the matter is that merit can't be retracted once given out so if that merit is used to resume shitposting then it was very poorly spent.

If a person who mainly posted in spam megathreads and/or bounty reports does start engaging in meaningful conversations then after a while their earlier posts can be overlooked, but in the immediate aftermath of meritocalypse? No way, Josè.


@Karlblaise1 - I have no idea what you just wrote as your grammar cannot be parsed unambiguously, but I gather you think theymos should have individually dinged bad actors rather than demote all jr. members who hadn't yet earned a single merit back to newbie. Given that there are >2 million users on this forum please let me know how you think that could be accomplished without spending years reading post histories...

It should be automatically disqualified those who demoted and should have atleast 1 to 3 weeks to improve their selves as an eligible quality poster before giving a single merit. Well, it was shocking that all of those who didn't receive any single merit goes back where they deserve. They just spammin' around and earning money from the bounty, not very surprising, that's how they work.

The demotion of those accounts will not have sense any more if they have friends who'll give them a single merit.


That's way too complex. There are tons of Jr. Members here and most of them are just doin' tasks at discussions. We can just check the merit summary at bpip and judge based on the facts and opinions of the highers.